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I visited for a week last September (2024) to look around Sicily between Palermo and Catania , where my grandparents emigrated from, to seek their futures in the American new world at the turn of the 20th century. I wanted to figure out if they were drawn to America or just wanted a better life than their home towns could offer them. Having spent a few days in their home towns, I realized why they emigrated. Both towns I visited were old in form and demographics, and very plainly devoid of a youthful presence or esprit de corps. I can only imagine how news of the American Promise reached my grandparents and motivated them to travel over what could only have been horse-drawn carriage routes to their respective ports of embarkation. My grandmother, in particular, would have traveled harder than my grandfather, being in the remote town of Aidone. In any case, that satisfied my notion of taking up a residence in their hometowns. I will now turn my attention towards the coastal areas of Sicily, if not the Italian mainland itself.

Edit: I realize two generations difference lies between their daily lives and mine. Perhaps I'm not interpreting their motives with a real sense of their lifestyles at the time, but being remotely located from their own country's destination cities, in their own time, and an agrarian life their only hope, I think I'm not too off the mark about their desires to seek something better. And, that still applies in their hometowns today from my perspective.